


Halo State

by AdmirableMonster (Mertiya)



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Celebrimbor's Restorative Justice, Everybody Lives, Falling banners and rings, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light BDSM, M/M, Maeglin in Eregion, Mild Stockholm Syndrome, Mind Meld, Multi, On BOTH SIDES, Polyamory, Redemption, Soul Bond, Waterboarding, discussions of consent, otherwise known as Mairon and Maeglin are both various levels of screwed up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:09:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26563396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/AdmirableMonster
Summary: Celebrimbor has just formed a soul-bond with Annatar, and he couldn't be happier about it.  And then, of course, Annatar turns out to have not one, but TWO soul-bonds, and his other soul-bonded partner shows up, seeking the safety and welcome of Eregion.  Things get complicated.  Celebrimbor makes tea and mediates, while trying to grapple with several revelations about the Maia he's in love with and his growing feelings for Annatar's previous partner.
Relationships: Annatar/Celebrimbor | Telperinquar, Annatar/Celebrimbor/Maeglin, Celebrimbor | Telperinquar/Maeglin | Lómion, Maeglin | Lómion/Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 19
Kudos: 43
Collections: Innumerable Stars 2020





	Halo State

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Harp_of_Gold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harp_of_Gold/gifts).



> I cannot even describe how excited I was to get this assignment. Harp_of_Gold, you are one of my favorite authors in the fandom, and I only hope you get a fraction of the amount of enjoyment I have gotten out of Build Up A New Us out of this fic <3\. 
> 
> Quick note: if anyone is iffy about torture scenes, there's one rather intense one that is skippable if desired. I'll put the description of the bare bones in the end notes as well as the lines that you should look for to skip (they're a bit spoilery).

Celebrimbor was having trouble focusing. Annatar’s slim hands were spreading out the parchment on which they’d scribbled the initial calculations for the annealing schedule to map out the phase diagram of a new steel alloy they were planning to try out, and the phase diagram was quite beguiling, but wasn’t, strictly speaking, as beguiling as Annatar’s hands.

“Hmmm, you’re watching me,” Annatar purred, running a finger along the back of Celebrimbor’s hand and drawing a sudden gasp from his throat. 

“You know I think you’re beautiful." Despite the frankness of his words, he could feel heat rising to his cheeks.

“If I hadn’t known before, I would now,” Annatar agreed, with a suggestive little tilt of his head. Celebrimbor took a moment to look up and tuck one stray silver curl behind Annatar’s ear.

“Just like I know you’re _trying_ to distract me,” he pointed out. “Come on, we really should get this worked out.”

Annatar pouted slightly, but laughed his light laugh. “Well, if I hadn’t wanted you to know that, I suppose I could have avoided last night’s encounter.”

“Would that have been worth it?” Celebrimbor knew that wasn’t exactly a fair question, but he had to ask it. He was still having trouble believing that Annatar— _Annatar_ , lovely, brilliant, amazing Annatar—wanted him. To everyone else, he might be the head of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, but to Celebrimbor himself, he was still just Tyelpe, youngest child of a discredited and hated house.

“Mmmm. Absolutely not.” Annatar kissed the tips of his fingers. “But since you are so insistent, we can return to the annealing schedule.”

As soon as they turned back to the scribbled numbers, there was a knock on the door. Celebrimbor cringed apologetically. “I did tell people they could disturb me—us.”

Annatar grinned at him, and there was a banked fire in those silver-gold eyes. “Apologize to yourself, Tyelpe. It will just mean we’re working later on the alloy.” As Celebrimbor rose to answer the door, he felt Annatar brush against their mental bond ever so slightly—a light caress, nothing more than the equivalent of brushing his fingers across the top of Celebrimbor’s hand. It still sent a shiver down his spine. It was so new, so fragile, so intimate.

Waiting at the door was one of Celebrimbor’s apprentices, Gweniel, and beyond her, a short figure wrapped in a dark cloak. “Lord Celebrimbor,” Gweniel began, then halted, evidently remembering he had told her not to bother with honorifics. “Celebrimbor. I have brought to you an Elven smith who is hoping to join the Gwaith-i-Mírdain. Um…” She glanced back at the newcomer.

“I asked not to give my name,” said the Elf in a low voice. Beneath the cloak, he was radiating a nervous tension.

“That’s fine,” Celebrimbor told him, adjusting his body language a little to make sure he was as nonthreatening as possible. “We don’t ask for credentials or histories here. Thank you, Gweniel.”

“I’ll just—I have to get back to my forge,” she said awkwardly, before sliding away and escaping down the hallway. She hadn’t waited for a dismissal, which Celebrimbor counted as a victory from any and every former thrall of Angband. He turned back to the newcomer.

“Would you like to come in?” he asked. “I do have a colleague in my office right now, but he’ll be happy to step out if it would make you more comfortable.”

He felt Annatar’s interest stir through the nascent soul-bond, and sent, as hard as he could, the equivalent of, _And stop eavesdropping_! The response was amusement. Of course.

“Thank you.” The dark-cloaked figure entered the room, slipping past Celebrimbor with his head ducked down.

“I’ll just leave you,” Annatar said, rising from the desk, and the newcomer halted in the center of the room as if he had been struck.

“ _Mairon_.”

Several things happened at once. Annatar’s eyes widened and he stepped back. Tyelpe felt sheer shock surge through the mental bond. The figure flung his hood back challengingly, to reveal a short Elf with black hair pulled back in a tight, unadorned braid and strangely-patterned skin, dappled white and dark like the shadows of leaves on the ground. And Celebrimbor felt Annatar's _other_ soul-bond—the one he’d finally been certain existed the night before when he and Annatar had created their own—snapping home.

“Wait,” Celebrimbor said in confusion. “Who _are_ you?”

Dark eyes flashed over to him. “My name is Lómion. In Gondolin they called me Maeglin.”

~

Maeglin’s breath was coming fast, too fast, rough and painful in his lungs. It was only the harshness of the climb, he told himself, slipping and sliding down the mountainside to reach the little glade where Mairon had promised they'd meet. It was not an easy climb. He was slipping and sliding, his hands catching at the rough slope. By now they were scraped raw, and he was leaving red-brown smears across the stone.

He sobbed softly. He was almost there. Mairon would be there. Maeglin shut his eyes and imagined his lover's too-hot arms around him, the soft feeling of his hair tickling Maeglin’s nose. He reached for the soul-bond—it was there. It was distant and flickering, but it was there, a constant source of warmth in Maeglin’s aching chest.

Valar, he was crying harder. Somewhere behind him, he could hear distant screams, the clash of metal on metal. Gasping, he slid the last five feet of nearly sheer cliff to the bottom, landing hard and rolling forward onto his knees. 

There wasn’t much point in guilt now, he told himself miserably. Mairon had said he’d keep Idril and Eärendil safe, but Maeglin didn’t know if Mairon really had as much control as he thought he did. _Just for once,_ Mairon had told him, _Take care of yourself, darkling. Please. For me._

He collapsed at the bottom of the cliff, panting, waiting for his breath to even out. With his head leaned back, he could see that there was a thick cloud of smoke drifting upwards towards the patchy cloud cover. Gondolin was burning. Maeglin felt a twisted burst of anger and relief, all at the same time. _You killed my mother. You always hated me._ But—hadn’t they been right to hate him? Maybe they had seen ahead to this moment and known he deserved the hatred, or that he would.

After a few minutes, he managed to pull himself to his feet. He was still shivering too much. He was very aware that he’d barely left in time, that if he’d delayed any longer he would not have been coming down the mountain under his own power. If it hadn’t been for the sheer panic Mairon had injected into the soul-bond, he wasn’t sure he’d have left at all.

But there—there was the little clearing, with the twisted tree on one side of it, stripped of leaves and quite dead. The large rock covered in moss. The river, running swift and sure down out of the mountains. It was empty.

Mairon would be here. Maeglin stumbled tiredly over to the rock and sank down onto it, pressing his face into his arms and trying to steady his breathing. Mairon would come for him. He’d promised. If Maeglin waited, Mairon would come for him.

~

“Just tell me _why_.” Lómion was trembling, and his hands were tight fists. Celebrimbor looked from one to the other. Annatar’s face was blank, a carefully-constructed mask. Lómion (Maeglin, the traitor of Gondolin) lifted his chin, his hurt and anger burning so powerfully that Celebrimbor could hear it as an echo washing backward from one soul-bond to the other. “Wasn’t I good enough?” He looked over at Celebrimbor, and then deflated slightly. “No—I suppose not.”

Emotions surged through Celebrimbor, and he couldn’t sort out which ones were his, which were Annatar’s, which were Lómion’s. He wasn’t even certain he could pick apart the components of the slurry beyond its physical effects, which were causing his breathing to roughen and his eyes to tear up. Annatar’s face was still blank, but the mask was meaningless when Celebrimbor could feel right beyond it. 

“All right!” he managed to cut in, with all the authority he didn’t feel. “All right.” He stepped between Lómion and Annatar, forestalling whatever sharp remark was about to come out of Annatar’s mouth. It wouldn’t help. “I’m going to make us tea,” he said, keeping his voice steady with an effort. “You two, sit down.”

“I don’t—” Lómion started to say, and Celebrimbor fixed him in place with a steady look. 

“Sit. Down.” He didn’t raise his voice, but Annatar flinched, and Lómion sat. “You will come to no harm in this place, you have my word,” Celebrimbor managed. He headed for the burner and the little water heater, swapped it out for the food-safe one, and lit the burner with hands that were shaking so much he nearly burned himself three times.

“ _Tyelpe_ ,” Annatar said, in a low, concerned voice, making a small motion.

“ _Don’t_.” His lover stopped immediately, and that was just one more blip in the confused roaring mess inside.

Eventually, the burner was lit and the water was heating. Celebrimbor went to the cupboard and started to hunt for the tea leaves. After several minutes, he looked up. “Annatar, where is my tea?”

Annatar didn’t meet his gaze. “Right cupboard,” he said meekly. “I was organizing—”

“ _Thank_ you.” 

Having successfully located Annatar's hiding spot for his tea, he also managed to locate the mugs, which Annatar had apparently removed from their rightful spot in the drying rack and put away. Celebrimbor had fired four of them himself; Narvi had made two particularly delicate ones; and Annatar had forged one overly intricate construction of filigree metal and glass. Celebrimbor grabbed three of his own, on the grounds that they would be the least difficult to replace if someone dropped one under emotional duress—or threw one at Annatar’s head, for that matter.

Concentrating on the rote task soothed him, and the herbal fragrance of the tea helped. It blunted the effect of the concentrated pain and fear attacking him on all sides—some of it his own, he knew. _Mairon._ They were going to need to talk about that. Among other things.

“Here.” He put one steaming cup in front of Lómion, one in front of Annatar, and one in front of himself. “We’re all going to drink our tea— _slowly_ —and when we’re all half-finished or so, we’re going to talk about this.”

Lómion nodded, his hands tightening around the mug. Annatar opened his mouth, probably to voice an objection, and then closed it again immediately. “Yes, Tyelpe,” he said meekly.

There was silence as Celebrimbor savored his tea. He let the unpleasantness wash over him, let it go, watched the river of emotion quietly, without getting drawn in. There was _plenty_ of time to get drawn in later, and he was fairly certain there was going to be no avoiding it. Not with Annatar at the center of a wobbly three-pointed angle that seesawed back and forth.

“All right.” He put the cup down, with a small sigh. “Lómion. How do you know—Mairon?”

Annatar flinched. “I can explain—”

“Can you?” Celebrimbor felt the smile stretching his mouth just a little too widely. “Really. Does the explanation take into account the fact that no one but me even wanted to let you into their city? Does it take into account your more common appellation?”

The Maia’s face went distant again. “It’s complicated,” he muttered.

“I’m sure it is, _Mairon_. But I would rather hear it from Lómion first, if that’s all right with you.”

Lómion’s lips were pressed together, and his voice shook a little, but he was calmer than he had been. “What do you want to know?” he asked with a harsh sigh. “Whether I betrayed Gondolin? I did. You must already know that Mairon and I were lovers.”

“Just…start at the beginning?” Celebrimbor suggested gently. “I know I said we don’t demand histories here, and I’m not asking you as the Lord of Eregion. I’m asking you as Annatar’s—Mairon’s—”

“All right. I suppose if you execute me afterwards, I deserve it.”

Across the table, Annatar made a wordless noise of frustration and pain.

“I was a prince of Gondolin. I made the mistake of falling in love with Idril Celebrindal. I made the mistake of being too unguarded near her, and she figured it out—I—I know I didn’t deserve her, but—”

“ _She_ didn’t deserve _you_!” cut in Annatar hotly. “None of Gondolin deserved you.”

“They certainly didn’t deserve what happened to them,” Lómion retorted wearily.

“Oh, they absolutely did,” snarled Annatar. “They _beat_ you. They _tortured_ you.”

“I deserved it!”

Celebrimbor felt the flash of blinding anger and reached out to grab Annatar’s hand before he could bring it slamming down on the table. Trembling, Annatar managed a few words instead, “A prince of the Elves, who knew how to take a beating. Who knew how to receive torment.”

As his words became clear to Celebrimbor, Celebrimbor recoiled as well, realizing the implications too late to stop himself from being drawn rapidly into the memory through the soul-bond. 

~

Mairon realized quickly that something about his calculations had been flawed. The Elf knew how to take a beating, and surely a prince of Gondolin should not know _that_? Not only had he refused to say anything relevant, which was expected, he cried out under the pain without even trying to hide it. He said _words_ , but they weren’t relevant, they were—

“Ada, Ada, Ada, _no_ , I’m sorry—I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to, I promise I’ll fix it myself—”

He had gone back somewhere else inside his head, easily, almost effortlessly. Which bespoke—practice. A great deal of practice. Perhaps as much practice as—no. The seared end of Mairon's broken soul-bond mocked him.

He grabbed the Elf by the hair and dragged him up. “Tell me, Maeglin of Gondolin, who has tortured you?”

Those dark eyes gazed up, bleary and confused, but as Mairon had thought, a question about something he was not trying to protect startled him into an honest answer, “My father…” he coughed weakly. “Some of the guards. To protect—Idril—because I—deserved it—”

Mairon dropped him and backpedaled as if he had been burned. _Someone you trusted has injured you so—_

He would have to change his tactics. He had miscalculated. That was why he felt that sudden sick nausea rising in his gorge, because he _hated_ to miscalculate. He needed to leave. He turned away from the Elf, who was still babbling on the floor, and blindly made his away out of the cell. Only when he found himself in his forge with the door locked behind him did he slip down into a heap on the floor and admit to himself that he was shaking.

~

Celebrimbor’s back hit the back of his seat as he rocked backwards. Annatar covered his face. Only Lómion seemed unaffected, his hands still tight about his mug.

“Is that how I looked to you?” he asked, in a small voice.

“Yes. No. I don’t—” 

“It must be difficult, for a liar to have two soul-bonds.”

“Three,” Annatar ground out. Celebrimbor, still trying to gather up his scattered wits, saw that little flames were licking down his silver hair in more than one place. “Two that are still—active.”

“Three. Yes.” Lómion licked his lips. “You felt sorry for me.”

Celebrimbor stood up. “Calm down,” he said steadily. “Do I need to make you finish your tea?”

“How are you this—this— _calm_?” snarled Annatar. “Did you see what I did? Did you see who I _am_?”

“Because someone has to be!” Celebrimbor retorted. “And you are not helping matters.”

Annatar gave him a twisted smile. “So I’ve been told many times.”

“If you just felt _sorry_ for me, why did you…?” Lómion interjected.

“Because I _didn’t_ , you—you _foolish_ Elf!” He glared and threw his hands in the air. “Do you want to know what I think of you? What I _thought_ of you? _Maeglin_?”

Celebrimbor opened his mouth as Annatar leaned forward. “Please don’t do anything—”

~

He was beautiful, Mairon’s little shadow. Beautiful and fierce and infuriatingly incapable of understanding that he had any worth at all. Mairon didn’t know how to combat that. He could kill everyone who had ever hurt Maeglin, and it wouldn’t do any good. So instead, he pushed Maeglin down onto the bed and kissed his chest and his stomach, running his thumbs up the inside of Maeglin’s thighs. Maeglin panted and whined beneath him. “ _Nph—Mairon_ —oh— _oh_!”

“Do you like that?” Mairon purred. He let his mouth drop further, teasing at the top of the trail of wiry hair leading down to between Maeglin’s legs. “Would you like more?”

Maeglin nodded shakily. “If—if that’s what you wa— _aaaaaaa_ —” Mairon had dropped his head and sucked Maeglin’s cock into his mouth. Those _noises_. Maeglin was apparently vocal in more than one intense situation. He was mumbling a string of nonsense words and gasping Mairon’s name as he fisted his hand in Mairon’s hair. Mairon took his time, rubbing circles all along Maeglin’s quivering inner thighs as he sucked him. He tasted new and different; he was slimmer and smaller than Mairon was used to, but his cock fit Mairon’s mouth beautifully, and he was less likely to give Mairon a rasping sore throat the next day.

“Please,” Maeglin begged beautifully. “ _Please_ —”

Mairon wanted to suck him until he came down Mairon’s throat, but that was for another day, because he wanted even more to feel Maeglin come inside him. With a groan, he pulled back, pausing to appreciate the way Maeglin’s cock strained upward, and the dismayed look he gave Mairon. “Did I—do something wrong?”

“Of course not.” Mairon smiled, licking a thin stripe with his tongue up Maeglin’s cock. Maeglin squeaked and gasped. “I was just thinking there’s something else you could do with this.”

“Wh-What?” Maeglin gave him a startled look, and Mairon laughed—when was the last time he’d laughed like this?—and flopped back onto the bed beside him, sprawling and spreading his thighs wide open for Maeglin to inspect, his own hard cock bouncing against his stomach.

Maeglin sat up eagerly. “You want me to…”

Mairon bit his lip and gave Maeglin his most innocent look. “Take me?” he said in a soft, inviting voice, and Maeglin gasped softly and covered his face with his hands. Mairon reached out and pulled his hands down. “Let me see your pretty face.”

“It’s not—” Maeglin bit down on whatever foolish protest he’d been about to utter. “You know I haven’t really, um…I might not be the most talented, right?”

“All talents take practice,” Mairon murmured, tracing a circle over the back of Maeglin’s palm. “So let’s practice.”

The shy smile Maeglin gave him was like the sun breaking out from behind a cloud. Mairon’s heart thumped hard and rapidly, and suddenly he had to fight to keep himself from hiding his face as well, which was an utterly ridiculous impulse. 

“All right. Tell me if I do something wrong—if I hurt you.”

_That_ got Mairon to laugh. “You couldn’t hurt me in any way I would find too much.”

A small frown appeared in Maeglin’s forehead, and Mairon was suddenly very aware of a particular ring of bruises around his throat, still not quite healed and still very possibly visible, a necklace marking his failure to anyone who cared to look. “I like pain,” he clarified. “I don’t _need_ it, of course—”

Maeglin cocked his head to one side curiously. He put a hand in the center of Mairon’s chest, flexed it, and drew his nails down Mairon’s chest. Mairon gasped, back arching at the sensation. “Yes—that’s—”

“What’s all right?” Maeglin asked, his voice suddenly turning a little darker. “I…liked that.”

Mairon tamped down his response of _anything_ , not wanting to scare the Elf off. “I’ll tell you if you go too far, how’s that?”

An indecisive look flashed through Maeglin’s eyes. “I shouldn’t—I—”

Taking his hand, Mairon nipped at the tips of the fingers. “But I’m _asking_ you,” he pointed out.

There was another pause. Maeglin looked up at him again, his eyes dark with desire. Then he went up on his knees and—Mairon barely had a chance to register it before Maeglin’s hand struck his cheek flat on, the sound of the slap ringing through the chamber. It snapped Mairon’s head to the side, and he moaned loudly, hitching his hips up towards Maeglin.

They stared at one another, both of them breathing hard, and then Mairon reached for Maeglin, and Maeglin reached for Mairon, and they were kissing. It was hard and biting and bloody, and they were both moaning and rutting against each other. Mairon sank his hands into Maeglin’s silky hair and twisted, and Maeglin whined and drew his nails sharply down Mairon’s back.

“Please, please, please,” Mairon groaned. “Inside me. Maeglin. Please.”

“Don’t we need—” 

Mairon rolled over desperately and snagged the vial of oil from the bedside table. “Here. Now. Just—”

With shaking hands, Maeglin managed to get a generous amount of it onto his cock, then looked down helplessly.

“Here,” Mairon said again. He went up on his knees, grasped Maeglin’s cock and guided him forward, then sank down on him, taking him easily right up to the root. Maeglin howled.

“Hold still—just a min-minute, darkling, just let me—” He rocked slightly from one side to the other, shifting his weight so he could move first one, then the other foot behind Maeglin. “All right. Follow me down.” He rolled backward, hooking his heels behind Maeglin’s waist, and Maeglin moved with him, muttering something incomprehensible again. “There. Got you, sweetheart.” He didn’t know where the words were coming from; he only knew he wanted Maeglin to know that he was wanted.

Maeglin panted, pressing his face into Mairon’s shoulder for a long moment. Mairon held him tightly, luxuriating in the feeling of Maeglin filling him up, of their sweat-slicked bodies pressed together. “You feel so good,” Maeglin whispered. He peeled himself back up and looked down at Mairon with bright wonder in his eyes, and Mairon’s heart threatened to burst out of his chest.

“Fuck me, then,” he responded, trying to sound casual, but it came out breathy and sincere, maybe too sincere. Maeglin ran a thumb along Mairon’s lower lip, and there was heat blooming in _Mairon’s_ cheeks, and he gasped and half-choked when Maeglin pulled back and slapped him again. He clutched at Maeglin’s shoulders, abandoning himself to thrusting up in answer to Maeglin’s hasty, awkward, arrhythmic motions. Mairon had to squirm and shift a little, but with some maneuvering on his part, he was able to direct Maeglin so that—“ _Ah—like that—_ little _shadow_ —”

“Mairon—p-precious—you’re beautiful, you’re so beautiful, you feel—amazing—I— _ah_ —”

Mairon dug his nails into Maeglin’s back, and Maeglin thrust harder, and the feeling in Mairon’s gut twisted and swelled and _blossomed_ —Maeglin gulped something incomprehensible and Mairon felt him twitch, felt the rush of warmth as Maeglin spilled inside him—and he was coming too, arching off the bed—and he felt—

\-- _the coolness of the deep shade beneath a tree at the height of summer, the vast branches spreading protectively above him—the perfect strength of the tiny atoms singing in crystalline harmony in a steel shield—and the sharp clever notes of a tiny, laughing bird as it flew loops around you—_

Maeglin collapsed against his chest, and Mairon stared down at him in consternation. He could still feel it, tucked up beneath his heart. He got a sleepy, sated smile. “That was amazing.”

“We’re soul-bonded,” Mairon responded blankly.

~

“—stupid. Just like that. Thank you for that.” Celebrimbor very carefully did not look at Lómion, and concentrated on willing down his incipient and _very_ insistent erection. 

Mairon—Annatar—looked from Maeglin—Lómion—to Celebrimbor, then blanched. “That—was only intended for Maeglin,” he said after a moment. “I—I didn’t mean to—”

Celebrimbor sighed. “That’s why I asked you not to do anything stupid.”

There was a very long pause. Lómion spoke next, “I’m sorry, Lord Celebrimbor—”

“It is not your fault, and please don’t call me lord.”

A guarded nod of the head. “So…so…Mairon, you really…” Lómion’s face worked, and his fists clenched. “You really _did_ care about me.”

Annatar looked sideways both ways. “I don’t know how to _do_ this,” he said eventually.

“It’s only sincerity, Annatar. You won’t break out in hives.” Tyelpe gave him a very wry look. “All right. May I speak?” He looked to both of them and got hesitant nods before continuing. “I understand what you’re trying to do, I think, Annatar. It’s not a bad method of communication, if you find words difficult and possibly— _for some reason_ —think your partners might have a reason not to trust you.”

A tentative feeling of agreement, of frustration, of fear.

“But you need to at least speak enough so that we know what to expect and so that we can consent or not. You can’t just shove everything into our heads, particularly if you can’t be trusted to get the right one.”

“I mean, I did _get_ it to Maeglin.”

“ _And me_. And while you’re—” Celebrimbor’s cheeks went warm, “—both, um, very attractive people, that’s the kind of thing I’d like to be able to consent to ahead of time. I imagine Lómion would also prefer to—to—”

Lómion nodded fervently, pulling his hood up to hide his face. Celebrimbor actually felt a faint echo of embarrassment through the soul-bond and sighed. Strong emotions, two soul-bonds, and a Maia who had no idea how to deal with either. (And who was apparently—no. That was for later.) What a fantastic situation.

Nod from Annatar. “I’ll. Try.”

Reaching out, Celebrimbor caught his hand and turned it over, pushing the sleeve back up. Annatar blinked at him in confusion. “See? No hives,” Celebrimbor said, with a slight upturn of his mouth. “Good job.”

“ _Why_ did you leave me, then?” Lómion burst in. “If you really lo—cared about me. Why didn’t you meet me outside Gondolin?”

Annatar winced. “There are several pertinent memories,” he said after a moment. “None of them are—ahm—intimate. Or particularly disturbing, at least as…both of your memories go.” He paused and considered this. “No. That isn’t true. There’s one. But I won’t show you that unless you—still want to see it afterwards.”

“All right. Show me.” Lómion leaned forward. “I’ve wanted to find you for so long, but I thought—you didn’t want me. That I wasn’t good enough.”

Celebrimbor took a deep breath. “I don’t suppose you’ll be able to _just_ target Lómion this time?”

A crooked smile. “Based on my performance thus far, I doubt it.”

“Just a minute then.” Celebrimbor got up, stretched, and headed for the cabinet near the door beside the bookcase. “I think we could all use a little wine.”

That got a strained laugh from Annatar. “That’s certainly a way to handle it.”

He brought the wine back along with three bent metal goblets and poured them all a generous serving. “All right. Let’s try. If you don’t mind me seeing the rest as well, Lómion.”

The dark Elf shook his head. “I just want to know,” he whispered.

Annatar leaned forward. “All right,” he breathed—

~

“Give me _time_ , my lord, I beg you.” Mairon’s knees were sore, his neck was stiff, and the blunt dull end of the severed soul-bond _ached_ , bone-deep.

“Have you not had all the time you should require, Lieutenant?” Melkor’s words were cold, but worse was the distant way his eyes constantly seemed to focus on a spot a little way above Mairon’s head. “If a few sessions of torment will not make the Elf compliant, kill him. What good is he?”

“Please, my lord.” Mairon ground his teeth together. He had explained this thoroughly and repeatedly. But when did Melkor ever listen anymore? The only thing in his eyes was the white shining gleam of the three jewels he wore on the iron crown he had forced Mairon to forge, in blood and iron. “He is a prince of Gondolin. Not so easy a catch to replace. Believe me, my plan may take a little time, but it will work.”

He waited with head bowed. He no longer tried to reach out for the soul-bond; the end was burned and dead, and he would only blunt his metaphorical fingers. It was an old pain. It didn’t matter. 

“What is your plan?” Melkor asked, voice monotonous and distant and dead.

_Oh, my lord. Oh, my love. Why did you abandon me?_ It was an old pain. It didn’t matter.

“I’ll gain his affection, lord. If he cares enough for me, he’ll betray his city to spare me pain. He doesn’t—care for himself, but for someone else? He’ll do it.” Yes, those frightened, angry dark eyes would give nothing up for himself, Mairon was sure. “I’m sure—” A bitter twist of his lips. “I’m sure you can make _my_ torment sufficiently convincing.”

Melkor’s cold eyes did turn on him then, snow-covered and fallow. “Very well, Lieutenant. I’ll give you more time.”

It was an old pain. It didn't matter.

~

“But it _was_ real—you can’t fake a soul-bond. You could have—forced it, but I know you didn't do that.”

“A soul-bond wouldn’t have simply formed because I felt _sorry_ for you either. But, yes—I—it was real.”

~

Despite himself, Mairon watched Maeglin working. Without telling him too much, he’d brought the Elf to his forge, still chained up by one foot, but free to move around the room. Maeglin barely seemed cognizant of the restraint, which worried Mairon a little. He had checked the Elf over for injuries before their first session, while he was still drugged and dazed, but the Orcs had not hurt him. Not that Mairon would have expected them to. They were well-trained on assessing the value of possible prisoners.

Maeglin was busily testing out the forge, expertly crafting something that seemed to be a bracelet made of tiny interlocking rings like chainmail. However fearful or weary he must be, he wasn’t showing any of it, and Mairon found himself staring at the fierce, contained joy that animated the Elf as he worked. It was—impressive.

“Beautiful,” he commented, and Maeglin glanced up at him.

“The things I make with my hands often are,” he responded challengingly. “Even if my hands—”

“Are also beautiful?” Mairon finished smoothly.

The Elf flinched. “No, they aren’t,” he retorted harshly. “Nothing about me is beautiful. When are you planning on torturing me again?”

“A somewhat intemperate question, don’t you think?” Mairon stood back. “But I disagree. You are beautiful. And I do not like to break beautiful things.”

“Next you’ll tell me that I can stop you, right?” Maeglin scoffed. “I’ve heard it before. _Don’t make me hurt you, Maeglin_.”

Mairon suppressed the shudder that ran down his spine. “It would make it easier for me to plead your case to Lord Melkor if you told me the location of the hidden city of Gondolin,” he agreed, and this time he quite deliberately shivered a little. He saw Maeglin’s sharp eyes catch it, and he ducked his head a little. It was almost shocking how easy it was to let the fear rise in him at the thought of his lord and master, as if it were real.

“I’m not going to tell you that,” Maeglin told him, turning back to the jewelry he was working on. Mairon considered letting him finish and then destroying it, but no—that wouldn’t suit the part he was playing. And he had not lied—he was loathe to break a beautiful thing, whether it was Maeglin or the bracelet.

“There is nothing I can do to convince you? I’m afraid we did not exactly start out on good terms.”

“You mean you torturing me? You’ll just do it again. I don’t care.” He obviously did, but he just as obviously wasn’t trying to hide the fact that this was mere bravado, as if he knew there wasn’t much point.

“Under orders,” Mairon replied quickly. It wasn’t quite a lie, and he let his voice rise breathy and a little quick. Maeglin’s dark eyes glanced over to him again, and Mairon noticed that, although most of both irises were nearly as dark as the pupils, he had one little blue-grey fleck up near the corner of his right eye that broke the coloration. It was eerily lovely.

“Well, yes, I suppose if you’re the Lieutenant of Angband you’re always under Morgoth’s orders. But you also signed up for that, didn’t you?”

“That was before the Silmarils,” Mairon retorted and found that he did not have to pretend the bitterness rising to his tongue. To his shock, he actually had to rein it in a little. “Before…” he swallowed, shakily. The blunt, torn pain of it ached in his chest.

“Before what?” Those skillful hands were still shaping rings and linking them together, weaving the bracelet into a waterfall of more and more links.

“Before our soul-bond broke,” Mairon responded dryly.

“Oh.” Maeglin’s head bent forward slightly, and for the first time, his hands faltered on the task in front of him. He went quiet. Mairon didn’t push him. He stood still and waited, carefully filtering through his own thoughts for useful ones to play this part, like, _Melkor doesn’t see me anymore_ , and, _Is this who I’ve become? A dog begging for scraps from a master whose soul was stripped by a set of shiny rocks?_ and, _I used to create things, not simply twist and destroy them._

Apparently he had a number of suitable thoughts.

“My mother broke her soul-bond with my father herself,” Maeglin said quietly.

“What?”

“He…it wasn’t…real?” Maeglin didn’t look up. He just kept working on the links. “I mean, I don’t know how much it was like a proper soul-bond, but he did _something_ to her. And she broke it herself. I think it hurt her quite a lot.”

“Yes, it—I imagine it would have.” When had Mairon pressed one hand to his own chest? A closed fist, just over his heart. He had to take a deep, steadying breath. 

Maeglin gave him a twisted smile. “You’re the first person who hasn’t recoiled.”

“You don’t just break a soul-bond unless there's something very wrong,” Mairon shrugged, hiding his surprise at Maeglin’s reaction.

“Well, there was. He forced it on her.” Maeglin gave Mairon a quicksilver sideways glance. “I guess Morgoth didn’t force yours on you, though?”

“No,” Mairon agreed. “But he was—different, before.” It was the right thing to say: it was what Maeglin needed to hear from him. But he hadn’t intended to say it.

“There.” Maeglin lifted the silver bracelet upwards and held it to the light, a glittering waterfall shedding intricately patterned shadows across the table beneath it. “Did he hurt you before?”

“Yes,” Mairon said absently. “But only when I asked him to.”

“I suppose that would make a difference,” Maeglin replied. “No one’s ever asked me.”

~

Celebrimbor took a convulsive swallow of his wine. “You both know that isn’t normal, don’t you?” he said conversationally. “You are both _aware_ of the concept of consent?”

“I understand consent perfectly well,” Annatar retorted. “You’ll notice I am no longer serving in Angband.”

“How long were you serving there after—” Celebrimbor saw Annatar’s face change, felt the twist of emotion across the soul-bond. “Never mind. Don’t answer that.”

“I’m not sure consent really applies when it’s your father,” Lómion said.

“ _A child cannot consent to anything like that_ ,” Celebrimbor responded immediately, appalled. 

“But my own—”

“No!” “ _Maeglin_!” Celebrimbor and Annatar both spoke up at once.

Lómion blinked a few times, then smiled shyly. “Well, I’m _aware_ of the concept, but clearly I need a little instruction in the finer points.” His mouth twisted up a little. “For what it’s worth…” He looked down at his hands. “Um…if I share something, too, will _he_ see it?”

“Probably,” sighed Annatar.

Nodding, Lómion turned to Celebrimbor. “Do you mind? It’s nothing intense.”

“I don’t mind,” Celebrimbor responded. “Also, for reference, that was a very good model of asking for consent. Unlike—”

“ _Yes I know_ ,” Annatar growled. “I’m sorry. I told you.”

“I just think there’s no harm in being explicit about it when someone does something right,” Celebrimbor told him cheerfully. Annatar put his head down on his arms and groaned. Point to Celebrimbor.

Another small smile lit up Lómion’s face. Would he have found it so attractive, Celebrimbor wondered a little guiltily, if it weren’t for the memory that Annatar had dumped into his head? Quite possibly, but he couldn’t be certain. 

“Then I’ll just…”

~

Warm arms, just too warm, around Maeglin’s shoulders and crossing protectively over his chest. He had never felt so cared for, so protected. There was probably some reason he should feel bad about that. Maybe it was proof of his inherent darkness. Maybe his father’s blood was finally making itself felt. But—after their first encounter—Mairon had been kinder to him than to anyone else, except perhaps Turgon and Idril. The soul-bond nestled warmly in his chest, and he smiled sleepily.

“Mairon?” he said hoarsely.

“Hmmm?” the Maia responded sleepily.

“Run away with me?”

Pause. Beat. Mairon’s heartbeat sped up against Maeglin’s back. “What…do you mean by that?” The Maia’s voice was a barely audible whisper.

“Leave here with me. Morgoth doesn’t love you anymore. You know I do. So come back to Gondolin with me. You don’t have to stay trapped here.” Maeglin blew hair out of his eyes.

There was a long, considering silence, and Maeglin felt a trickle of something like interest through the soul-bond. “It’s impossible,” Mairon said wistfully. He pressed his face into the junction of Maeglin’s shoulder and his neck. Maeglin’s heart sank. Of course it was. Certainly it was impossible for someone to do something so ridiculously brave for _him_. “But you do have a way of making me want to do the impossible,” Mairon breathed in his ear.

Maeglin turned halfway over in the bed, threaded his arms around Mairon’s neck, and pulled him down for a long, slow kiss. Warmth flooded the soul-bond, and Mairon slipped his hands down Maeglin’s back and lazily hitched their hips together. “I love you,” Maeglin mumbled against Mairon’s mouth.

~

“When we soul-bonded—I really thought it was going to be all right. Maybe if I hadn’t betrayed Gondolin.” Lómion bowed his head. “Of course you didn’t care, but—maybe I’d have deserved it? Or not deserved it? Ugh, I’m talking nonsense, I know it.” Tyelpe felt raw, aching pain and guilt—and he was pretty sure it wasn’t all from Maeglin. He narrowed his eyes and looked at Annatar, whose head was slumped forward again, his hands twisting in his own hair in a very uncharacteristic way.

“You didn’t betray Gondolin, Maeglin,” Annatar said hoarsely.

“What do you mean, I didn’t—" Lómion’s head whipped up.

“What do you remember?”

Black eyes flickered sideways. “I remember…”

~

Maeglin was dragged out of uneasy dreams by the sound of the heavy door of his cell opening, and he sat up, clutching at the ragged blanket. Wasn’t it the middle of the night? What was Mairon doing here?

But it wasn’t Mairon.

The figure who stood in the doorway was head and shoulders taller than the Maia Maeglin was used to seeing. He stooped as he entered, and Maeglin gasped at the brilliant white light that shone above that black head, too bright to look at directly. He went up on his knees, his heart beating rabbit-fast.

“So,” said Morgoth. His voice was quiet, quieter than Maeglin had expected, but it was so cold it seemed to crackle with ice. “Maeglin, prince of Gondolin.”

Maeglin wanted to respond with something brave, but he knew that was foolish, and he didn’t think he’d have been able to speak anyway. He just lowered his head and hunched his shoulders and tried to loosen his muscles.

“My lieutenant tells me that thou hast still not revealed the location of the hidden city of Gondolin.” Even without looking up, Maeglin could tell that Morgoth had drawn closer. Light and heat seemed to bleed out of the room as he did. Maeglin shivered so hard that his teeth began to chatter. “This recalcitrance ends today,” Morgoth told him, and one huge hand reached for him.

~

He woke up slowly, feeling strangely numb and disconnected. Mairon was stroking his hair, but Maeglin could barely feel it. His head was in Mairon’s lap. His shoulder hurt, distantly.

“Are you awake?” Mairon asked softly. His voice was shaking and breathy, as if he were afraid. But they were in Mairon’s chambers—Maeglin recognized the scorch marks on one wall and the deep burgundy of the quilt he could see out of the corner of his eye. What was there to be afraid of?

“I’m awake,” Maeglin managed to get his voice to say. It sounded scratchy and rough. “Mairon? What happened?”

“You’re going to be fine,” Mairon said. “Maeglin. Thank you.”

“Wh-What?”

Mairon leaned down and kissed his forehead. “I know you didn’t want to tell him, but I’m glad you did,” he said gently, and Maeglin felt his insides go cold.

“I didn’t—I wouldn’t—”

“It was the right thing to do,” Mairon told him fiercely. “None of them care about you, little shadow.”

“Idril does. Turgon does.” Maeglin tried to get up, but Mairon pressed him back down.

“Hold still. Don’t move. I’ve lessened the pain, but it will take you time to heal.” He bent over Maeglin, one hand splayed on the center of his chest. Distant, fleeting pressure, fleeting warmth. “I’ll keep your chosen ones safe, don’t worry about that.” His gold eyes went queer and distant. “He’ll give you Idril, if you want her.”

“ _No._ ” Not like that. Never like that. He might love her—who wouldn't? but he'd never force her. How could Mairon even have thought—

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Mairon must have felt his revulsion through the bond. The bond—it felt so strangely distant, stretched taut and thin between them. Maeglin saw Mairon swallow, tight and strained, but he didn’t know what his lover was feeling. “I don’t know what I’m saying, I’m still—” He shook his head. Something strange, still, something _wrong_ , but Maeglin couldn’t figure out what it was. “Wilt thou still run away with me?” he whispered, and Maeglin felt a single sharp _stab_ of pain and winced.

“I can’t go back,” he said, appalled, suddenly realizing the depths of his betrayal. “I—no—I _must_ go back—to warn them—”

“They’ll kill thee,” Mairon told him, and that statement was nothing but simple truth. “Take something for thyself for once, I beg thee.”

Shutting his eyes, Maeglin lay back limply. “All right,” he agreed. “All right.”

~

“And that’s all.” Lómion shrugged. “I betrayed Gondolin. I killed Turgon.” He took a nervous sip of his wine. Annatar took a long draw of his own, and it was strong wine—Maia or not, Celebrimbor suspected he was trying very hard to get himself drunk. He slammed the goblet down on the table, and a sheen of red appeared on his silver hair, illuminating it from the inside.

“That’s not all. But if I am going to show you both this, then—I—it will not be pleasant.”

“What…is there to show?” Lómion asked.

Celebrimbor decided to follow Annatar’s example and half-drained his glass. “Cheers.”

“It’s violent. And painful.” Wisps of smoke curled upwards from his head.

“If you want to show us, then…I want to know,” Lómion said, and Celebrimbor nodded.

Annatar nodded. He shut his eyes.

~

Mairon felt the icy chill of Melkor’s regard through the soul-bond, and his heart leapt into his throat. _Maeglin_. No, no, he was supposed to have more time than this. Melkor wasn’t supposed to be there. In a flat panic, he dropped the pen on top of the supply lists he had been going over and _reached_ for Maeglin, trying to see what was happening—

And there was _pain_ , and Maeglin was screaming, and Mairon stopped trying to see, stopped trying to connect, and simply slipped into his place, shoving Maeglin down inside his own head and covering him with Mairon’s _eäla_ , the same way he might have interposed himself physically between Maeglin and his attacker if he’d been there. Somewhere, far away, he felt his own _fana_ , barely occupied, slumping down across the desk.

Maeglin’s _hröa_ was curled up on the little cot in his cell as blow after wild blow rained down on him. Mairon put his hands over his head, trying to steel himself. It had been too long since Melkor hurt him like this, and it was wilder and fiercer than he was used to. The heavy pain splintered through tender flesh that wasn’t inured to it, and Mairon wept and tried to stay limp. He’d endure it for Maeglin. He’d keep his shadow safe, no matter what.

Melkor dragged him up by his hair—by Maeglin’s hair—and carried him out of the cell as he scrambled to figure out what he was going to do. If Melkor was out of patience, then Mairon was out of time, and that meant Maeglin was out of time, too. Frantically, Mairon did the only thing he could think of and tried to shove Maeglin’s memories open by main force. Maeglin resisted, pushing him away and crying out in incoherent terror.

_No, no, no, shhhh, shhhh._ Mairon tried to soothe him. _Just let me in. It’s me_.

Before he could get any farther, he was yanked back to the present by the sound of tearing cloth and the feeling of his back slamming into cold stone. Melkor had ripped Maeglin’s tunic off and pinned him down to a slightly inclined stone table that Mairon, in a panic, recognized only too well. The flight instinct of Maeglin’s terrified _hröa_ met and reacted with the terrible, blinding fear of his own _eäla_ , and Mairon was _screaming_ , because he knew—and he’d _done_ this to prisoners, but Melkor had never done it to _him_ because—for a fire Maia—

“Please,” Mairon begged with Maeglin’s voice. “Please don’t.” He barely restrained himself from throwing himself on his knees to Melkor and begging him with his own tongue. It wouldn’t do any good, and it would only harm Maeglin in the end. The Silmarils still shone blindingly on Melkor’s forehead.

“Tell me the location of Gondolin,” Melkor said, his voice quiet, firm, and distant. Nothing like the howling spirit of chaos that Mairon had loved. And now there was someone else on the other side of Mairon’s soul-bond, and he had to _protect_ him, but he didn’t know how—he should have left with Maeglin before any of this could happen, but it was too late now.

“I—I,” Mairon panted. He couldn’t say he didn’t know. Melkor forced Maeglin’s small form backward onto the table and snapped the embedded cuffs around his wrists. _Maeglin, please—let me see—I have to see—I can’t—_ but he couldn’t leave either. Leave Maeglin to _this_? No. Mairon would die first himself.

Melkor flung a cloth over his head and Mairon didn’t even have time to struggle before he felt water on his head, flowing over his nose and mouth. Maeglin’s lungs locked up immediately and painfully, his body struggling out of Mairon’s control. _Nonononono_ —he was underwater, he was drowning, he was a fire Maia fighting a hungry river, and the river was winning—

He wasn’t screaming anymore, because he couldn’t scream, but he was slipping underneath, the pain clawing through Maeglin’s lungs, and the water creeping in _—_ the water that would slowly, agonizingly douse Mairon’s fire. _Maeglin, I need to know! Maeglin, Maeglin, love, please, just show me—just show me a little—_

The cloth was pulled away, and Maeglin’s body gasped, pulling in air so sharply that it felt as if fine blades were being driven through his lungs. _Please,_ Mairon begged. The breaths turned into sobs. Wherever Maeglin was, he wasn’t truly conscious, but his _fëa_ responded to Mairon’s terrified plea, and this time Mairon was able to open his mind and look inside, not fully, but enough to find a few images—

_Gondolin, white towers shining bright against the skyline—_

_The pattern of the stars hanging above them as Idril watched them and smiled before their nightly sparring—_

_The winding path of the approach as he followed his mother trustingly upwards towards their Doom—_

Mairon’s eyes snapped open just in time for the cloth to be reapplied and for the water to start trickling again. He couldn’t stop Maeglin’s body from thrashing again, and this time he felt something pop in Maeglin’s upper shoulder as the body strained futilely for air. Pain flared, but it was dim compared to the agony in his lungs and his _eäla_ —oh, he was going to _drown_ , he was going to _die_ —

He wanted to leave more than he had wanted anything in a long time—it was not the pain, but the terror, the feeling of his life force ebbing inch by inch at the press and trickle of the greedy water. But he could not—would not—leave Maeglin here to bear the brunt of this himself. Some small part of his mind laughed at himself—would he not himself have done this to Maeglin? Hadn’t he done this to more than one prisoner? After the Silmarils—he and Melkor would not have stooped so low before, he thought vaguely, but the Silmarils had happened, and their soul-bond had broken in pain and burning white fire, and he had tried so hard to be worthy, to force it to somehow heal—

But it never would. And he would die here.

The cloth was removed and Maeglin’s body spasmed on the slab, trying to gasp in breath but incapable of pushing past its own firm belief that doing so would flood its lungs with water. 

“Do you have anything to say?” Melkor’s emotionless voice asked.

Frantically, desperately, Mairon nodded. He could not let Maeglin die like this, and he _would_ —Melkor would keep the torture going inexorably until the Elf’s heart failed or his mind was lost. Already, there was the dislocated shoulder; there might be lung damage. Mairon could heal it. If he could get Maeglin to safety. If he could placate Melkor.

To his unending relief, Maeglin’s lungs relaxed enough for him to force them to draw in a few shallow breaths. “I—I will tell you the location of Gondolin, lord,” he choked out.

~

“You didn’t betray Gondolin, Maeglin. I did.”

Lómion blinked at Annatar, his face blank, though he was sweating and pale. Celebrimbor suspected that he was also pale—he could feel the sweat gathering at his temples and collecting on the palms of his hands. Those hands trembled so hard that it was difficult for him to grab his goblet, but he did, thankful for the burn of the wine as it went down his throat. If it had been so bad as a memory, an echo—what must it have been like for Annatar, when he had lived through it?

He took a long moment to reorient, and then he rose and went over to Annatar’s side and put his arms loosely around him. With a soft noise, Annatar turned and pressed his face into Celebrimbor’s chest. 

“You shouldn’t have,” Lómion said from the other side of the table. Annatar trembled in Celebrimbor’s arms. “It was my choice. What about consent?”

“We’ve already established I still need to improve on that front.” Annatar’s voice was thin and muffled. “And I did not _mean_ to. I couldn’t let him hurt you. I couldn’t let him kill you.”

“Then why did you _lie_ to me about it?” Lómion stood up, slamming both hands onto the table as he spoke. “For years, I thought I’d—I thought—”

Annatar took a deep, shuddering breath, and Celebrimbor rubbed circles into his back. “Speak, love,” he murmured. “You need to learn at some point.”

“Hives,” Annatar muttered, with a choky laugh, but he continued after a moment, “You’d have gone back. They’d have killed you.”

“Then that would have been my choice, too,” Lómion retorted mulishly.

“No.” Annatar pulled himself out of Celebrimbor’s arms. “No, I refuse to let you have the choice to _die_ , Maeglin. I won’t—I won’t show you the dreams I had—all blood and bone at the foot of that Valar-cursed cliff—”

“But if you loved me—” Lómion took a long drink, got to his feet, and came around the table as well. “You left me. You abandoned me outside Gondolin. You let Gondolin burn.”

“I saved your Idril. And her Eärendil.”

“But not Turgon.”

“What do you want from me?” Annatar covered his face with his hands. “I did what I could. It wasn’t very _much_ , but I did it.”

“And you _abandoned_ me!”

“ _So that Melkor wouldn’t kill you_!” He shook off Celebrimbor’s embrace and stood up to put his hands on Lómion’s shoulders. “Do you know what he would have _done_ if I had left and he had found us? He wasn’t the Vala from the First Age anymore—he wasn't my _love_ anymore—”

“Oh, _now_ you admit it—”

“ _He would have tortured you to death in front of me_!”

Celebrimbor held his breath, not certain if he should step in. They were both clearly anguished, but at least they were talking now. He waited.

Lómion sobbed, twisting his hands in the front of Annatar’s lovely robes. “Morgoth is gone. Morgoth has been gone for _eight hundred years_!”

“True,” Annatar agreed. He put his arms awkwardly around Lómion, and Lómion cried into the front of his robes. “I—I didn’t mean to make you cry, little shadow. I just wanted you safe and happy.”

“You could have come back. Why didn’t you?”

Celebrimbor felt the answer in the soul-bond before Annatar said it and resisted the urge to throw his mug at Annatar's head. “Why would you want me after that?” Annatar’s voice was quiet and a little puzzled. “I thought it would be kinder to avoid forcing you to deal with me. I presumed you had enough to handle.”

Lómion took half a step back, then punched Annatar hard in the face. Annatar staggered backward, and Celebrimbor steadied him before he could accidentally fall into anything. The Maia put a hand to his cheek and gave Lómion a crooked smile. “What a _very_ mixed message,” he purred, the look in his eyes turning teasing for a bare heartbeat.

“You—you—you _Maia_!” exclaimed Lómion. “Leaving aside that you left me and everyone else to think _I betrayed Gondolin_ —” 

Annatar flinched, then looked mulish. “They didn’t deserve you anyway,” he muttered.

“ _Not the point_. Besides all that, I—we—you—” He looked over at Celebrimbor. “Can I share something else? It’s personal but not—um—not sex or anything.”

Celebrimbor nodded.

~

It took nearly a year for Maeglin to admit to himself that Mairon wasn’t coming for him. The little glade where they’d been supposed to meet turned out to be quiet and well-hidden. There were plenty of fish to be had in the nearby river, and he liked to sit on the mossy rock and watch the clouds traverse the sky. If it hadn’t been for the ache in his chest, he would have been quite happy to be left alone like this.

He built a little shelter and adopted a scruffy cat who wandered into his encampment a few days after the fall of Gondolin. It had probably been someone’s pet—its fur was singed, and it didn’t like to be left alone. Maeglin didn’t mind. He spent a long time stroking it and soothing it, and they ate fish together.

It was funny how much having time made him miss his mother again. He thought that was one wound that had scarred over long ago, but it hadn’t. He sat on his rock with Sable in his lap and stared at the clouds and wished she were here.

“You broke a soul-bond once, didn’t you, Mother?” he would say.

She would smile at him with that crooked grin she never gave to anyone else. “Damn right I did.”

“Did it hurt very much?”

She wouldn’t lie to him. She had always told him truthfully when something would hurt, and he knew she would tell him this would hurt more than anything else ever had. He’d seen her afterwards, his brave mother, curled up and shaking as she cried into her arms with the pain of it. But she’d sat up and smiled and told him it would be all right now. She was so happy, so brave, so free—and then it hadn’t mattered. So she’d tell him that it had hurt more than anything, but it had all been worth it.

Maeglin didn’t know if he could be as brave as Aredhel, but he wondered if it would be worth trying. He pressed his fingers against his chest, thinking about it. He’d certainly dealt with pain before often enough. Digging out the nagging reminder that he’d had someone who hadn’t wanted him didn’t seem like such a bad idea. He wondered if Mairon had tricked him into this soul-bond as Eöl had forced Aredhel into theirs.

But—no. He still remembered the moment he’d felt it. The moment he’d seen the terrible, wild joy of a wildfire burning and consuming but leaving behind ash and new growth, the perfect order of coal crushed into a diamond, hard and unyielding and beautiful, and the hopeful bird who had followed someone who promised freedom and found himself in just another light-lined cage. The warm soul-bond—stretched thin between them now—it hadn’t been a lie. It had been made for real. It was real. He could break it if he wanted—he knew he could—but he didn’t want to.

He just wanted his precious back.

“Thanks, Mother,” he whispered, wondering if she could see him now, wondering if her stories about the compassionate tapestry-filled hallways were true. He hoped so. Sable butted against his hand and purred as Maeglin petted him.

~

“Little shadow…” Annatar whispered.

“I could have left you with another broken bond,” Lómion said. “I didn’t.”

Annatar pressed their foreheads together. “I’m sorry. For everything you’ve suffered on my account. All I ever wanted—”

“I know.”

Celebrimbor sighed, watching them touch each other hesitantly, feeling the tenderness spilling over from their shared bond. “Shall I leave you for a little?” he asked.

Annatar’s eyes slid over to him. He gave Lómion a gentle kiss on the lips and murmured something into his ear, then disengaged and went to his knees on the floor in front of Celebrimbor. “I believe you have been more than patient enough, beloved. I can feel your—” his eyelashes fluttered, “anger. Confusion.” His lips quirked. “Would you like to hit me as well?”

“Would I like to— _no_ , Annatar, I would not like to hit you.” Celebrimbor’s fists clenched despite himself. “Yes, I’m _very_ angry with you,” he agreed, glancing over to make sure that Lómion was all right with the conversation turning this way. He was watching them both with a shy, tender look on his face, so Celebrimbor decided it was fine to allow himself to have all the feelings he had been firmly suppressing. “I’m _furious_. Yes, I believe in everyone having a fresh start, but you _tortured my uncle for thirty years_. You broke my family apart. And you lied to me.”

He half expected Annatar to protest that he had had no choice, or that he had not been alone in what he had done, but the Maia only nodded, which soothed Celebrimbor’s feelings a little. So he continued, “And you’ve also been very kind to me in Eregion. I knew there was _something_ dark in your past—I didn’t expect it to be _this_.”

Annatar’s head bowed. Still he did not speak. Celebrimbor paced back and forth. “At least you’re apparently capable of learning from your mistakes,” he muttered. “Eventually.”

“You may take from me in full measure of what I took from you,” Annatar said, in a low voice.

“And what good would that do? For Valars’ sake, Annatar, think about what you’re saying.” Celebrimbor shook his head. “No. We don’t do vengeance in Eregion.”

“Not even to Sauron?”

Lómion made a choked noise and stepped forward.

“You’re worrying your other lover. Stop it. Do you think Lómion would want to see you hurt? _Tormented_?” Celebrimbor groaned. “I couldn’t have fallen for a former thrall, or—or a traitor or—No. Of course it had to be _literally Sauron.”_ He put his head in his hands. The wine had relaxed him a little, but it had also blurred up his thoughts. “I suppose we’d better do this the usual way,” he said, eventually.

“What’s the usual way?” Lómion asked, sounding slightly nervous.

“Community service.”

Annatar’s shoulders were shaking.

“Are you laughing, Annatar?”

“N-No, of course not, Tyelpe.”

Celebrimbor knelt and looked him in his smirking face. “I don’t care how foolish you think I am. This is my city, and this is who I am. Who would I be if the fact you had harmed me personally and put me in a very inconvenient position let me change that?”

Those red-gold eyes opened in startlement, and Celebrimbor gave him a thin, almost predatory smile. “I can already think of a list of items, although they will have to be approved by the Council. Refurbishing the rooms of every former thrall, for one thing. Perhaps serving on Galadriel’s planning committee—”

“ _Oh_ , you are cruel, Lord of Eregion,” breathed Annatar, but he had stopped laughing. “But if this is your will, I will not gainsay it.”

“It is,” Celebrimbor said firmly. Then he turned to Lómion. “And you, Lómion, are welcome in Eregion. You may stay as long as you wish.”

A startled blink, followed by that impossibly charming small, shy smile. “Thank you, Lo—Celebrimbor.”

“Please,” Celebrimbor said, with his own smile. “Call me Tyelpe.”

~ _One year later~_

Celebrimbor stepped into his forge and smiled. Lómion was poking at a complicated assemblage of wires again, as he had been every time Celebrimbor had entered for the past week. “Is the mechanical brain going well?”

“I think so!” Lómion looked up with a cheerful grin. “Mairon stopped by in between meetings to work on it with me.” He went slightly red. “We even kissed. I think…we’re getting close to being ready to do more.”

“I’m glad.” The two of them had been taking things slowly and carefully, but it looked as if they were finally getting to the point of relearning one another. And Celebrimbor hadn’t known, which meant Annatar was doing a better job at managing two soul-bonds. With luck, that even meant that Lómion wasn’t privy to every single moment of Annatar and Celebrimbor’s trysts. Not that Celebrimbor really _minded_ , and certainly he and Annatar were careful to check with Lómion for that reason, but it would be helpful not to have to be.

Possibly, Celebrimbor should have _stopped_ having sex with the ex-Lieutenant of Angband for more than a month, but, well, he hadn't. Annatar was truly trying to do what he wanted—truly trying to make it up to _him_ , however _he_ wanted it. And Celebrimbor didn't see why he should have to put up with deprivation because of Annatar's misdeeds. And Annatar was not averse either, of course.

And then there was Lómion. It had taken some time for Celebrimbor to untangle which of the mess of feelings about Lómion were his and which were Annatar’s, but he felt secure in his own now, and he was going to have to broach that subject with Lómion himself soon.

The other Elf stood up, stretching luxuriously as he set his pliers down carefully. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” he said, biting his lip. “Tyelpe, um. I know things were a little queer between us at first, what with—how we met? But I was hoping it had been long enough that…”

Or perhaps he wouldn’t have to. Celebrimbor grinned and went across the room. “If you are saying that you think you have feelings for me…”

Even a year ago, he suspected Lómion’s expression would have dropped, that he would have assumed the feelings were unwanted. But after a year in Eregion, his face opened, and his eyes went bright. “Yes,” he said. “That’s right. Are you…”

Celebrimbor took his hands. “I think you’re wonderful,” he said honestly. “Brilliant and beautiful. I would very much like to get to know you better in that—context.”

“So would I.” Lómion twined their fingers together. “Can I kiss you, Tyelpe?”

Nodding shakily, Celebrimbor leaned forward. Their lips met, soft and careful. He let Lómion lead, let the kiss turn slowly deeper. Their hands started to wander tentatively across each other’s forms. Lómion made a soft noise, scraping his teeth across Celebrimbor’s bottom lip. Celebrimbor moaned in answer, rubbing his hands across Lómion’s waist. He could feel Lómion hardening against him.

He broke the kiss, panting, to pull back and ask, “What do you want?”

“Everything—anything,” Lómion replied immediately. He pulled Celebrimbor’s hands down till they were cupping his ass, and Celebrimbor grinned at him and squeezed experimentally. Lómion made a soft, pleased noise, hooking his leg behind Celebrimbor’s. “Also, I talked about this with Mairon last night, so—he knows. He’s fine with anything.”

“You really thought this through, didn’t you?” Celebrimbor stroked his thumb across Lómion’s cheek.

“I don’t want to hide anymore,” Lómion told him, turning his face to kiss Celebrimbor’s thumb. “I…don’t want to hate myself either. Mairon taught me that, and then you did. I’m not always good at it, but—I want to be able to want things that I…want.”

“Well, you can,” Celebrimbor reaffirmed, kissing his forehead. “And we can do anything you like together.” He groaned as Lómion immediately slipped his hand under Celebrimbor’s tunic and into his leggings and grasped him firmly.

“I want you against me,” Lómion said, giving him an intense, dark-eyed stare. Celebrimbor’s breath hitched in his lungs, and he fumbled at Lómion’s clothes as well. 

“Yes— _please_ —” he gasped, managed to yank up Lómion’s tunic and scrabbling with his own soft leggings.

“I want—my back against the wall—please, Tyelpe—” Lómion bent forward, rubbing clumsily at Celebrimbor’s rapidly-hardening erection and kissing him sloppily down his neck.

“Yes, yes, all right,” Celebrimbor agreed hurriedly, reaching down beneath Lómion’s thighs to pick him up. The smaller Elf whined and squirmed in his arms, hitching his hips against him, as Celebrimbor carried him back to the wall furthest from the workbench and pinned him up against it. “How’s this?”

“Perfect. Ah, Tyelpe—” 

Celebrimbor kissed him again and moaned as he felt one of Lómion’s clever hands pressing their cocks together, silky hot and slick with precum. He rutted into the touch, and Lómion gasped. Then they were moving together, all pleasant heat and moaning gasps. Their tongues tangled together and Celebrimbor groaned at the delicious sensation rolling lazily through him. He nipped lightly at Lómion’s lower lip, and Lómion deepened the kiss eagerly. They rutted hard against each other, the heat and pleasure of it building and building in Celebrimbor’s stomach and groin. Lómion writhed, letting his head fall back as he bucked back against Celebrimbor, and the softness of his thighs brushing tantalizingly against what little of Celebrimbor’s were exposed. Celebrimbor wanted to take him to bed and take him apart, to feel every inch of his skin against Celebrimbor’s, but for now—this was good, this was _brilliant_ —just like the Elf in his arms, mewling and whining and—

Celebrimbor’s orgasm caught him half by surprise, and he pressed his face into Lómion’s shoulder, shaking, as he spilled across both their cocks and Lómion’s hand. “ _Tyelpe_ ,” gasped Lómion, and he was coming too, wailing Celebrimbor’s name again loud enough that he was sure to be heard halfway across the Gwaith-i-Mírdain.

Very carefully, his hands and legs trembling, Celebrimbor let him down. Lómion slid down the wall and kept sliding, slowly puddling into a collapsed, happy-looking heap on the floor. When he was certain that the other Elf was stable and not going to hit his head, Celebrimbor joined him, flopping down beside him and putting his head on Lómion’s shoulder. “That was fun,” he said breathlessly.

Lómion turned his face sideways to kiss him again, hard and eager, and Celebrimbor let him, murmuring happily against him.

~

_Elves_. Mairon groaned and let his head thud against the wall tiredly. He did not hate _every_ Elf, he reminded himself. Just, currently, most of them. No. Not most Elves. Just all the Elves who had been in that particular council room. That meeting had been _interminable_. What a torture technique, he thought dryly. Just make your chosen victim slowly bored and very lightly claustrophobic until they wanted to claw their skin off and jump out the window. 

There had been no need for that last hour of everyone being freezingly polite and repeating their stances over and over again, getting nowhere. No matter how much he tried to pour oil onto troubled waters, it was useless. The Elves were proof against even his silver tongue—admittedly, he conceded with bad grace, probably something to do with their mutual history. Still, though. He was exhausted, in a terrible mood, and not really willing to concede anything at all.

Wearily, he trudged down the long stone hallway towards his chambers, then paused. Candlelight flickered from underneath the closed door, and he could hear the sound of two familiar voices chattering and laughing. Feeling a little heartened, he pushed the door open and then paused on the threshold.

Maeglin was sitting on the bed, in a black silk robe open at the front to reveal more of his beautiful dappled skin than Mairon had seen since the First Age, though shadows mostly hid the space between his legs. Beside him, Tyelpe was lounging, stripped to the waist, his silky ink-black hair making strange curls and whorls in the bright candlelight.

“Good evening,” Mairon said, once he had convinced his throat to form language again. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

Tyelpe looked up and grinned widely, wrinkling his nose in that ridiculous, adorable way that Mairon loved. “Just the person we were waiting for.”

“Well, you have no one but yourself to blame for my being delayed.” Mairon slipped in and shut the door behind him. “I was at another one of those terrible planning meetings.”

“I would argue that really I have you to blame for that,” Tyelpe retorted mildly.

Mairon responded only with an expressive shrug, before seating himself on the soft fur carpet before the bed and looking up at them inquiringly. “To what do I owe the honor of the Lord of Eregion visiting my poor chambers?”

“Oh, and I suppose I’m nobody.” Maeglin toed at him crossly, spreading his legs and letting the robe fall further apart. Mairon’s eyes were caught by the sight of his thighs, the dark skin with its three light streaks like someone had drawn three fingers down the inside and left a chalky mark.

“By no means, my prince,” he murmured. “You do me great honor as well. Perhaps I should have asked: to what do I owe the honor of this dual visit?”

“Well—” Maeglin glanced at Tyelpe, then hunched his shoulders as he often did when he was nervous, and continued. “Tyelpe and I have talked—”

“Yes, I can see that,” Mairon said, with a smirk, eying Tyelpe’s strong shoulders and then once again letting his eyes trace the shapely delight that was Maeglin’s inner thighs. This caused Maeglin to quiet suddenly and Tyelpe to laugh and then go slowly red.

“We’ve talked, and it’s early, but we want to form a soul-bond between the two of us as well,” Maeglin blurted.

Mairon, who had been watching them throw longing glances at one another for at least the past six months, nodded seriously. “Surely you don’t need my help for that.”

He’d said the wrong thing. Maeglin bit his lip and went quiet, his body language immediately closing off. Mairon bit down on his frustration and looked to Tyelpe for help.

“Oh, we don’t _need_ it,” Tyelpe said, and that, of course, was the right thing, because Maeglin relaxed again. “But it might ease the way a little.”

“Do not mistake me,” Mairon said, with a quick little nod of thanks, “I would be—” he cycled through a ridiculous number of words and phrases in his mind before coming up with, “I would wish to be there, if you would have me. I only…”

“You’re only being stupid again,” Maeglin said crossly, and Mairon laughed with a little relief.

“It’s the symmetry, you see,” Tyelpe explained. “We were talking and it seemed only right—symmetrically speaking—that I take Lómion.”

Oh. _Oh_. And Maeglin had never—Mairon was beginning to see. “And you’ll feel safer if I’m there to help?”

Maeglin nodded jerkily. “It’s only—you know my body so well,” he explained hesitantly. 

“Of course,” Mairon said soothingly. Then, because he knew Tyelpe liked it when he was honest, “I never thought you would ask me to be present for such a thing, and it makes me…very happy.” He sounded so foolish, but that soft look in Tyelpe’s eyes was well worth a little discomfort.

~

Tyelpe’s soft hands urged Maeglin back into Mairon’s lap. Mairon was still fully clothed, though he had changed into a clean, soft tunic and kicked off his shoes and socks. He petted Maeglin’s hair soothingly, and Maeglin made a quiet noise and wriggled back against him, letting the silken robe fall from his shoulders. He looked up back at Tyelpe, who was now standing up to remove his trousers.

He hadn’t gotten a good look at him earlier, though he’d spent the last several hours ogling the muscles of Tyelpe’s arms and shoulders. He was slim but strong, and Maeglin loved the way that silky dark hair fell across his shoulders, now that it was unbound. His fingers itched to play with it, to twist the hair until Tyelpe was gasping and begging—

“Mmm.” Mairon nibbled on the top of Maeglin’s ear, very gently. “He _is_ lovely when he’s wrecked. You’ll love it.”

“Talking about me?” Tyelpe shook out his hair and knelt between Maeglin’s spread legs, gloriously naked. “Or _thinking_ about me, I take it?” He took Maeglin’s hand and kissed the palm of it gently. Maeglin sighed blissfully. He could feel himself hardening. Tyelpe bent over sideways and retrieved a bottle of oil from underneath the bed. He kissed Maeglin’s inner thigh, and Maeglin shivered, biting back the moan that rose to his lips.

“You can be loud, little shadow,” Mairon murmured. “You’re safe. I’ve got you. We’ve got you.”

“I’m just going to start with one finger,” Tyelpe told him, leaning forward to drop a brief kiss on Maeglin’s lips. “Is that all right?”

“Yes,” Maeglin whispered. Then, feeling Mairon’s warm encouragement through the soul-bond, “Yes,” louder.

Tyelpe smiled at him and kissed his stomach and his inner thigh, then sat back. “All right. Tell me to stop if you need me to.” He dipped his finger into the oil and then leaned forward and kissed Maeglin as he pushed it inside.

It felt odd, maybe just a little painful. 

“All right?” Tyelpe asked. Maeglin nodded, and Tyelpe began to move the finger in and out, slowly and shallowly at first, then getting deeper. He crooked it, and something deep inside Maeglin sparked like flame igniting. He cried out, cock twitching. “Good noise?” Tyelpe asked with a grin, and Maeglin nodded. 

“Good noise,” Mairon confirmed, still holding him tightly but not too tightly. “You’re doing well, sweetheart,” he crooned to Maeglin, and Maeglin’s heart warmed at the words.

“More,” he said, tipping his hips to meet Tyelpe. Tyelpe added a finger, pressing them deeply inside of him. 

“You’re still tight,” he said. “Can you relax a little?”

Those clever, warm hands in his hair went from petting to scratching, which was a little more intense, but between that and Tyelpe’s fingers inside, sending ecstasy twisting through him in bursts, Maeglin moaned and melted, all his muscles going limp and loose. “Better,” Tyelpe said approvingly. “Do you need another finger, or do you want me to—”

“Inside me,” Maeglin gasped. “Please, Tyelpe.” He reached up and grabbed one of Mairon’s hands.

“Did you want me to stop?” Mairon asked, suddenly hesitant.

“No—no, just, hold my hand. I want you to hold my hand, precious, please.”

“Forever, if it please you.” He squeezed Maeglin’s hand and dropped a shy, chaste kiss onto Maeglin’s forehead. Then Tyelpe’s hands were on Maeglin’s waist, and his attention was very much back on Tyelpe, who was leaning forward with an intense look on his face.

“All right. H-How do I do this?” Maeglin asked.

“Relax, mostly,” Mairon told him. “Let us know if you don’t want something. Let us take care of you, darkling.”

“Mmm.” Maeglin looked up at Tyelpe’s blue eyes, welling with affection, wondered if he could drown in those eyes. “All right.” He blew out his breath. “Let’s try.”

Tyelpe kissed him again, then put his hands on Maeglin’s hips and rearranged him slightly. The next moment, Maeglin felt Tyelpe’s hardness pressing at his entrance. His heart thumped, and he felt himself clenching up. His hand tightened in Mairon’s, and he looked at Tyelpe again and took a deep breath, even as Mairon’s hand twisted tightly at his hair and Tyelpe lightly stroked his cock. 

He relaxed again and watched Tyelpe’s face screw up as he pressed inside, a soft little moan bubbling from Maeglin’s lips at the same time. It definitely felt stranger than the fingers—fuller, and the stretch burned a little. “All right, sweetheart?” Tyelpe asked breathlessly, his thighs trembling against Maeglin’s. He ran his thumb across Maeglin’s lower lip.

“Think so,” Maeglin panted. He rocked his hips a little, and Tyelpe made a stunned noise. 

“ _Lómion_ ,” he breathed. There was a speckled flush growing across his chest. 

“Mmmm—you feel good,” Maeglin told him. “I— _nfff_ —” Tyelpe had thrust shallowly, and it hurt, but the pain transmuted itself through some queer alchemy into pleasure. “Yes—that’s—that’s _good_ —do that again?”

“How’s this?” Tyelpe slipped nearly all the way back out and back in, slow and careful. Then he did it again. Maeglin put a finger into his mouth and bit down. He could feel his cock twitching on his stomach. 

“S’good,” he said breathlessly. “I want more.”

“I think you can thrust a little harder,” Mairon said. “He’s doing fine. He’ll tell you to stop if he needs you to, won’t you, little shadow?”

Maeglin nodded shakily. “Yes. Please. Please, more, Tyelpe.”

“Valar, you are beautiful,” Tyelpe told him softly, and he was all sincerity and warmth as he started to thrust harder, his hands on Maeglin’s thighs steadying them both. Maeglin let his head fall back and whimpered at each time Tyelpe’s cock—filling him, _fucking_ him—struck that sparking place inside him. Any pain faded underneath the slow pulsing waves of pleasure. He was burning from the inside out, and he didn’t care. He wanted to burn more, to rise higher—“ _Ngh_ — _aaaahhh—_ just like that, Tyelpe, Tyelpe, _oh_ —”

“You’re doing so well for me, sweetheart,” Tyelpe murmured breathlessly in his ear. “You feel so good, clenching around me like that— _aaaahh_ — _just_ like that, oh, Lómion!”

And it had been centuries since anyone looked at him like _that_ —and he was doing that to Tyelpe, bringing that flushed, glassy-eyed look to his usually calm countenance, and Maeglin _loved_ that. He bucked his hips back against Tyelpe, grunting at the additional effort, and Tyelpe gasped and moaned, his movements stuttering against Maeglin.

Then—they were moving together, clumsily at first but getting steadily more graceful moment by moment. They were weaving something with their bodies, Maeglin’s bemused brain supplied between the gasps and sweat and mounting pleasure. Like forging a complex filigree of two different metals winding around one another. This time, he could feel the pattern forming, in a way he hadn’t really all those years ago in Angband, half out of his head with fear of Morgoth and self-loathing. He grasped at Tyelpe’s shoulders to steady himself, as an anchor, as a reminder—

“Oh—oh—Lómion—I’m—I’m so _close_ —” Tyelpe gasped, and he was so beautiful like that, and all of it for Maeglin. It made him feel greedy. It made him feel loved.

“Please, b-beloved,” he murmured, through the delicious fog of pleasure, “spill yourself within me. Bind us together.”

“Yes,” gasped Tyelpe. “Yes, just like that— _yes—Lómion—”_

His cock pulsed inside Maeglin, and he went still between Maeglin’s thighs, and then Maeglin _felt_ Tyelpe’s climax in echo and saw/felt/heard—

A tight-woven heavy wool cloak tucked about you, keeping you safe and secure and warm—a brisk autumn breeze slapping cheeks to red fullness, waking up the brain and pushing, pushing, always pushing to your full potential—and Eregion itself, the song of it, a bright white eight-pointed star blazing and tamed and transmuted into a sigil of safety, of joy, of welcome—

“I love you,” Tyelpe whispered in his ear. “Your soul is _beautiful_ , Lómion.” Maeglin clutched him close. He couldn’t make the words form in his throat, but his buried his face in Tyelpe’s shoulder and willed him to feel everything welling up inside him. For an instant, it was only the two of them, alone in their own little world, sharing love and joy back and forth through the new soul-bond. Then they smiled at one another and looked up and both reached out at once—and there he was, waiting, a little nervous, a little afraid, somewhere far underneath running the question of whether they would both still need him now that they had each other—

“Don’t be stupid,” Tyelpe murmured. He and Maeglin crawled shakily up the bed and enveloped Mairon in a huge hug. “It’s not a question of need.”

Mairon laughed shakily and kissed both of them on their foreheads. “A threeway soul-bond, hm,” he murmured. “I do not believe there is precedent for this.”

“Oh, there probably is,” Tyelpe said lightly. “People are quite inventive. Unusual, though, I’ll grant you.”

“Wait.” Maeglin sat up and looked at both of them. “Are we _married_?”

Tyelpe giggled. Mairon put his head on Maeglin’s shoulder and his hand about his waist and drew him close. “Would you like to be, little shadow?” he murmured, in his most sultry voice.

“Technically, it probably depends whose customs you’re using,” Tyelpe said, in a slightly strained voice. “Although Annatar being a Maia might throw it off?”

“You’re forgetting about Melian,” Mairon pointed out airily. “There’s definitely precedent for _that_.”

“I suppose there is.” Tyelpe frowned, then looked at Maeglin. “I wouldn’t mind,” he said thoughtfully. “Although everyone in the city will be furious if we don’t have a ceremony. They’ll feel cheated.”

“Oh, _no_!” Maeglin dove underneath the blankets. “Oh, I _couldn’t_!”

“You don’t have to,” Tyelpe said hastily. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“Would people really want it?” Maeglin poked his head up, and Mairon ruffled his hair. “I mean. Wouldn’t they be angry?”

“Probably,” Mairon agreed. “But at me, not at you. You forget—you are in Eregion now.” A slight twist of his lips. “You are not the traitor of Gondolin to them. And you never were, in any case.”

“Hm.” Maeglin considered. “Well…let me think about it.”

“Of course,” Tyelpe agreed immediately. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, Lómion.”

“That’s because you’re perfect,” Maeglin agreed, wrinkling his nose. 

“I’m not,” Tyelpe said dryly. “I think I’m the only one of the three of us who _doesn’t_ aspire to perfection.”

“Agreed,” Mairon said, with a wide smile. He leaned over and kissed Tyelpe on the cheek. “Which is why you are the best of us. I wonder…” He looked thoughtfully off into the middle distance. “If it _is_ a marriage, of sorts—ought we to have tokens?”

“Tokens?” Maeglin repeated.

“Rings,” Tyelpe supplied. “It’s usually rings.” He smiled. “I don’t see why not. Three rings for three beloved, bonded.”

“We could forge them together,” Maeglin said, suddenly finding himself excited. “What metals would we use?”

“We’d have to do some research,” Mairon said thoughtfully. “We’d want to be careful about the choice—there are many considerations. But…I would like to…if you both would, as well?” He sounded hopeful.

“Yes,” Maeglin said recklessly. “Let’s start with three rings. And then…maybe…we can talk about a ceremony.” He put his arms around Mairon and Tyelpe and drew them all in for the warmest, loveliest hug he’d ever had. He was safe. He was loved.

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, if you want to skip the torture scene, stop reading at the end of the section that ends "Annatar nodded. He shut his eyes." Skip the next section and start back in with "You didn't betray Gondolin, Maeglin. I did." What happens, in brief, is that Mairon flashes back to basically taking over Maeglin's body to take the torture for him. Morgoth waterboards him. Mairon desperately begs Maeglin to give him some memories of Gondolin, receives them, and tells Morgoth that he will give him the location of Gondolin.
> 
> Now onto some extra notes and excitement!
> 
> First: huge thanks to moiety for helping me brainstorm, reading my excerpts, and giving me feedback on them.
> 
> Next: I would like to note that part of the inspiration for this fic, in addition to Harp_of_Gold's prompts are her own characterizations of Maeglin and Tyelpe; in particular, this fic is kind of my idea of what would have happened if Tyelpe had gotten to do what he says in Build Up A New Us he wishes he'd been able to do. His restorative justice for Mairon (and, yes, "planning committees" is a direct nod to New Us.)
> 
> Also, Maeglin has vitiligo, which is an idea I came up with while working on an entirely different fic (inspired by Lemurious's Arda Forged series), but which I ended up liking so much that I've adopted it here as well.
> 
> As for the title, it's a riff on Borromean Rings (which I...thought might confuse people in the fandom given the similarity to "Boromir"), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borromean_rings, which are a set of three-way interlocking rings, which is--honestly, the perfect symbolism for these three. In particular, the term "halo state", according to Wikipedia, "A quantum-mechanical analog of Borromean rings is called a halo state or an Efimov state (the existence of such states was predicted by physicist Vitaly Efimov, in 1970)."


End file.
